Thursday, December 27, 2007

Slava Reaches #1000, Makes Blogger Feel Old

by Jes

There are many things that make me feel older, such as seeing Salt N Pepa with their own reality show and realizing how long its been since they put out anything good, looking over the Vancouver Giants roster and seeing that I'm over a decade older than most of those kids, and certain NHL milestones.

I think it's very special. One thousand games, not everybody can make it, and I'm really happy I'm playing my 1,000th game against my old teammate Sergei Fedorov," Kozlov said. "We played a lot of years in Detroit together."

The stats:1000 Games Played315 Goals416 Assists731 Points+129

Now, I know Kozzy has been in the league for ages, but when a player reaches 1000 games (over 12 full seasons worth of matches), it pretty much hits like you a lead hammer that "Damn, this guy has been around a long time.". When it's a guy like Kozlov, who kinda sneaks up on you, it makes you feel even older than you already do.

Now, I'll acknowledge Kozlov's skill and the playmaking abilities he brings to the Thrashers, but I'm not still not a big fan of Slava and his wonky evil eye.

I'll forever remember the trade to Buffalo, and the sulking Slava took to afterwards. Instead of utilizing the chance to break free of Fedorov's shadow, Kozlov simply sulked about being traded to a team that wasn't l33t.

Well, I don't hate him as much as some Sabres fans (the below yanked from a message board), but I'm not pleased with him for making me feel older.

But let's face some facts: (1) Hasek allowed you to be traded here because you were useless to the Wings. (He was right.) (2) You completely cowered out. Instead of "manning up" and helping to turn the Sabres into something, you wanted to get away. (3) As a result, you play for a freaking hockey team IN ATLANTA. I don't care if they pull off the next seven Cups, you're still behind college football, baseball, pro football, college basketball, NASCAR, pro basketball, Democrat bashing, women's pro basketball, tennis, golf, water polo, tobacco spitting, Walmart shopping, rodeo, women's rodeo, Kozlov rodeo, frisbee golf, hacky-sack, and about every other sport or somewhat-organized activity down there in East Alabama. Here, if you had shown some sack, you'd be the toast of the town.

You could have stayed here and have become something. Instead, you pulled up your skirt and took what looked at the time to be the easy way out. And damn, you demanded it, didn't you? A trip to that hockey hotbed, Atlanta, Georgia. (Did they tell you then that this is their second team? Or were they too sick of your whining to care?) How were the playoffs last year? Oh, I forgot--you and the rest of the Atlanta squad "flamed out"--pun intended--and didn't make it. Hey, at least you were on the team, right? Not like that Russian Olympic team that you somehow didn't make for about the fourth try.